


Devil-may-care

by belmanoir



Category: Black Moth - Georgette Heyer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tracy's been in four duels in the past three weeks. Frank gets in a duel to make a point about how unpleasant it is when one's friends get into duels. Tracy is not amused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devil-may-care

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silverfox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverfox/gifts).



> I would like to thank my cheerleaders/brainstormers inseriatim and Sonia, and my beta, llassah! You guys are the best.

Frank Fortescue paced back and forth in the small salon of his Grace the Duke of Andover's Parisian lodgings. His low, dreamy voice was much less dreamy than usual. "Tracy, I beg of you--" 

"Pray do not," said the Duke. He reclined on a small sofa, the other's agitation seeming to enervate him. "Begging is such an ineffective mode of communication. It evokes pity and embarrassment, but very little impulse to obey."

Fortescue came to a halt by the window. It was dark out, and His Grace could see himself reflected dimly in its panes, a flickering expanse of black-and-silver topped with a bone-white face. "I have no hold on you," Fortescue said evenly. "I know that very well. But if I thought an attitude of command would profit me, 'fore Gad, Tracy, I would use it! Four duellos in a month?"

"Three weeks and two days," Tracy corrected him. 

"I am only asking you to place a proper value on your own neck! If not for your sake, then for mine. I beg of you--"

His Grace smothered a yawn. "And here we are, back where we started. We shall not dispute the proper value of my neck. If I were to change for anyone's sake, it would certainly be yours; but even for you I will not suffer slights on my honor or my name."

Frank's lips contorted in a sort of pitying disgust. "Is it honor that compels you to punish boys for your interest in their sisters? Or to needle a man until he insults you past the point of conciliation? Whose honor is satisfied by such a fight, Tracy?"

"The sisters', I suppose," Tracy said without much interest. "Whatever drop of that commodity they may possess. When a man seeks out a quarrel with me, Frank--"

"It is you who seek quarrels!"

The Duke's aristocratic nostrils flared. He did not move a hair from where he lounged on the sofa, but every muscle was rigid. "I am not busily engaged in insulting one of the most skilled swordsmen in Paris. That distinction belongs to yourself, my dear, and while you may not _seek_ a quarrel, you run perilously close to finding one." 

"Would you go so far, Tracy?" his friend asked softly. "Would you run your blade through my heart, just to prove you have none? I begin to believe you would."

His Grace laughed, his spine relaxing back against the brocade. "Prove to whom? Only you suppose me to possess any such article, and in this neat little tragedy of yours, you would not remain to admit your mistake. Surely my purpose might be better served by divesting you of an arm or an ear? You would be fetching with an eye-patch, I think."

Fortescue smiled crookedly. "I'd miss your company, you know, if you died in one of these little adventures of yours."

"I have yet to be in any danger. For a supposed nation of swordsmen, these Parisians have so far failed to do more than scratch me. 'Tis most disappointing."

"A pretty scratch, Tracy, that gash in your arm! I suppose I should be grateful you're too proud to lose a-purpose. You want to be beaten."

"The curse of the Belmanoirs," Tracy said with a sigh. "One of them, at any rate."

Frank gave him a long, considering look. "Very well, Tracy. Let's see how far this pride of yours goes."

Tracy's mouth curved. "To the marrow."

Frank nodded, leaning his elbows on the sill. "From today, I'll match you fight for fight."

The hooded eyes blinked. "You aren't the swordsman for it."

Frank shrugged and stood. "Then don't fight."

The smile died, and the green eyes were cold and hard. 

Frank smiled in spite of himself. "If you had a tail, it would be lashing, Tracy."

His Grace rose, icy fury in every line of his body. He reminded Frank of nothing so much as a cornered panther, hundreds of years of inherited arrogance in the curve of his nose as he looked down it. "You overextend yourself. If you rely on some secret virtue in my nature to save you, you are a fool. I should be sorry to have wasted so many years of friendship on a fool."

"I shall probably see you tomorrow," Frank said calmly, going to the door. "Oh, and Tracy--in case one or the other of us does not emerge whole at the other end of this game, I want you to know something."

"And what is that?" Tracy asked through his teeth. His face was perfectly white. 

"I will never consider our friendship a waste."

###

Tracy had found a quarrel by dinner next day, and by supper-time he counted on the news having reached so far as the ears of his friend. He was not a man who liked to be boxed in, and meant at once to show Fortescue that it could not be done. 

As he entered the little gaming club just off the Rue de Rivoli where he had spent most of his evenings that week, his eyes scanned the room for Frank. It had become a habit with him, to look for Frank. All the more reason to break the connection; it grew oppressive.

Frank was in the corner, playing piquet with a young sprig of the Italian aristocracy whom Tracy knew to be an aficionado of the rapier. 

The Duke's hand clenched on his walking stick. But he did not really believe Fortescue a fool. His friend was not reckless, nor was he likely to be drunk. No doubt he had hoped pawing the ground and tossing his antlers would turn Tracy from his course, but now Frank had seen his teeth. The Duke saw two potentialities: either Frank would give way as he always had before and let Tracy bet on his play at piquet, or he would throw Tracy over altogether.

Tracy did not quite like to let Frank go entirely. It smacked too much of Frank's talk of self-sacrifice. His Grace was selfish as well as proud, and he did not mean to give up something that had brought him so much enjoyment. Perhaps in a year or two, Tracy might have lived past this wildness that had come after Diana, and Frank might have settled into middle-aged country-squire good humor, and the thing would be patched up.

Frank looked up. His eyes met Tracy's. He stood, and quite deliberately turned his head to look at his partner. "You damned cheat," he said, loudly and clearly, and threw his hand in the _visconte_ 's face.

###

The next morning, the Duke--who had drunk an unknown quantity of claret before Frank's little indiscretion, and another bottle afterwards--found himself provoked nearly to murder by his valet as the man fussed with patches and diamonds and lace. Tracy reflected that Frank _would_ set the hour of his appointment just a few pale moments after dawn. He was not sick; it had been a long time since he had really felt the effects of liquor, let alone its after-effects. But his eyes were heavy, and his head ached. He supposed he was getting older.

He did not feel as if he were getting older. He felt as if he were already partly dead. His own bone-white face in the mirror looked to him like an ill omen.

###

"The little viscount parries too hard in _quarte,_ " Tracy said. "You may make something of that."

Frank smiled at him. Tracy ground his teeth together, that he could smile. "I wondered if my lesson would be efficacious," Fortescue said. "I'm flattered to see that it is."

His Grace breathed hard through his nostrils. "Risking your hide to school me is misguided. I am sadly incorrigible."

"No. You're merely selfish. I ask you to think of my feelings when you duel, and you laugh in my face. Now you know first-hand how I feel, but I don't expect any newfound sympathy to sway you either. I hope to make the price of your duels more than you wish to pay, on your own account."

The Duke covered a yawn with one glittering hand. His eyes glittered too, green and furious. "You make me quite long to be rid of you."

Fortescue's smile softened, his eyes crinkling fondly. "Promise me something, Tracy. Promise me that if I die, you won't let it ruin you."

Tracy lounged against a convenient tree. "I don't know how you fancy I could grow worse."

Frank sighed. "Perhaps not. I wish--I've always wished--well, never mind."

His Grace clenched his jaw and did not ask.

These might be the last words he ever shared with his friend. However, he did not choose to believe so. The _visconte_ was enjoying Paris too much to risk fleeing a charge of murder merely to put Frank in his place.

Fortescue sighed and turned away. Behind him, the Duke's fist clenched. Fortescue did not see it, but the doctor did, and felt almost sorry for the proud, fantastic figure. He reflected that black and silver show to advantage in a candle-lit room, but black rarely looks well at dawn. The dye is never quite even. 

The doctor sensed, however, that sympathic overtures would meet with a rebuff. He offered them instead to the _visconte_ 's second, a stripling shivering in his greatcoat and looking rather green, either from drink or fear or an unpleasant combination of the two.

So the Duke stood silently and alone, eyes glittering, and watched the combatants make their salutes and engage. Frank's form was bad enough that Tracy felt an impulse to avert his eyes discreetly, but he did not.

Alas! the _visconte_ was also bad. If he had been good enough to control Frank, there would have been little to fear; but when two incompetents fight, anything may happen. Each clumsy clash of blades rang flat and far too loud. And then--Tracy winced--Frank lunged when he ought not, the _visconte_ tried and failed to turn his blade, and the rapier slid smoothly into Frank's shoulder, knowing its own purpose even if its owner did not.

Tracy was upright, gesturing to the doctor. 

"Is the match over?" the little man asked.

Frank, incredibly, laughed. Holding out his left hand to the _visconte_ , he supported himself with the other, the point of his sword driven into the earth. "I apologize. I was quite drunk. My accusation was unworthy of you, and of myself." The bloodstain on his coat was spreading rapidly, and the blade on which he leant was bowed. The Duke was quite incapable of motion. He had trained himself ever to be cool and collected, and now he could not be otherwise. But in his mind's eye, he saw himself tearing the hapless _visconte_ to shreds. He saw himself catching Frank up in his arms. 

His arms remained immobile, each muscle carved from granite.

The _visconte_ shook like a leaf, his eyes fixed on the bloody point of his sword. " _Si, certo! Il medico! Subito!_ "

The doctor hurried forward. Fortescue glanced at his friend. "My head is swimming," he said wryly, just before his knees gave way. 

The doctor caught him, teetering a little. Tracy did not move. " _Monseigneur, s'il vous plaît,_ " said the doctor.

He came forward and accepted Frank's weight. It warmed his cold chest. He lowered Frank to the ground and settled his head carefully in his lap. 

"Well?" His Grace asked the doctor.

The doctor struggled to remove Frank's coat to examine the wound. The wounded man jarred awake, biting off a scream. He smiled shakily up at Tracy. "This was a mad start." 

The doctor looked between them curiously. The Duke's mouth was a white line in a whiter face.

Tracy knew that another man might have been worried now, or afraid, or sorry. He was too full of howling anger to speak. And to think that Frank had done this for _him_ \--the pathetic waste of it, the hopeless inutility, only drove his fury to new heights. 

###

Tracy carried Frank from the carriage. "Say something," Frank mumbled weakly into the silver embroidery on His Grace's coat. "You haven't said a word."

Tracy did not look down. He gave the door three precise kicks and waited. The door opened, and Fortescue's valet made a great show of distress. 

The Duke ignored him, carrying Frank to his bed and setting him down. At Frank's inarticulate noise of pain, Tracy's heart convulsed with rage. He turned, paced abruptly to the wall, and stood there, hands in his pockets.

"I'll be fine," Frank said.

Tracy had been cruel to Frank so often, and for so long, that now he could find nothing to say that would distinguish this cruelty, this anger, from the times before. To speak to Frank would be nearly to forgive him. 

Fortescue shifted and tried to look at his bandage.

"If he won't let it alone, drug him," Tracy rapped out to the valet. Frank was very pale. The wound was only two inches deep, but it had bled a great deal. "And bring him something to eat." When he looked down, Frank was asleep. 

###

" _C'est rien,_ " the doctor insisted. "A fever is normal."

"The wound." Tracy indicated it with an imperious finger.

"There is some inflammation and redness, but the infection is not serious. Be patient."

"He talks nonsense."

"That is to be expected," said the doctor. "If it oversets you, you must hire someone else to nurse him."

His Grace threw the doctor out and slammed the door behind him. He regarded Frank's dozing form. The doctor could say what he liked, but in his heart, Tracy knew the truth. He knew that Frank would die.

Tracy had always expected that one day he would find himself in Hell. He hadn't expected it to be so soon.

###

Frank woke. "Oh, you're here, Belmanoir. I thought it was a dream."

Tracy wondered if he would ever speak to Frank again. He wondered if this anger would ever calm. His jaw ached, and his teeth.

"You know, I always wanted to save you." Fortescue's voice was weak, yet it pounded into the Duke's skull like red-hot nails. "I think...I think I've been full of pride. Who am I to save anybody? But I thought..." His head fell back. "I thought you could be happy. I'd like to see you happy."

"You're delirious," Tracy bit out.

Frank turned his head on the pillow to look at him. "What would make you happy, Tracy? Do you even know yourself?"

"You're one to talk."

Frank smiled wryly. "I know what would make me happy. But I haven't the courage to seek it. It goes into my liver and makes me sanctimonious."

"That is your mistake," Tracy said with difficulty. "When I see a thing I want, I take it." An image swam into his mind, of a woman--a girl, really--with dark eyes and a tragic mouth. 

"Diana is in Paris, you know," said Frank.

Tracy did know. He supposed Jack wished to show the world to his provincial bride, to pour the treasures of the Continent into her lap like so many wildflowers.

Frank turned his face away. "Perhaps you should see her."

Fury ate at Tracy's chest. Words came to him-- _I shall be sure to transcribe our meeting for your edification_ \--but his lips would not open.

Diana, at least, had never made him angry. And he had never intended to stay away forever.

###

That strange little man of Jack's reappeared in the doorway, having first carried off His Grace's card into the dim interior. "Her Ladyship is not at home."

Tracy bared his teeth. The man blinked, but did not give ground. 

"Jim, is it really--?" said a voice which Tracy recognized, and then a blindingly white wig appeared around the door-jamb. The face below the wig was handome and possessed of a pair of deep blue eyes. "Devil?" Jack Carstares's pencilled brows drew together. "Is there news from home? Dick--?"

Tracy shook his head.

Jack leaned carelessly against his doorframe, looking apologetic. "Diana won't see you, Tracy. If you try again, I shall have to make that point in no uncertain terms."

Tracy drew himself up. "Really?" he drawled.

"You must see it's impossible." Jack bit his lip. "I heard about Frank. Will he live?"

The Duke's fingers itched to go around Carstares's neck. "The doctor believes so."

"I'm glad."

One black brow arched, almost convulsively. "Are you?"

"I don't wish you ill, Tracy. I find it hard to forgive what you did to Dick, but--"

"What _I_ did to _Dick?_ " Tracy demanded, polite incredulity in every line of his face. "I believe you mean, what Dick did to _you._ "

Jack sighed. "I thank God I wasn't born with the Belmanoir temper." 

"If you had been, you would have been living happily at home for the past seven years," Tracy said cynically.

"Happily? No." The wistful blue eyes narrowed, and searched Tracy's face. "Can you truly not understand why I did what I did for Dick? Is there _anyone_ you care for, Tracy? Really?"

The Duke knew what was expected of him. "Naturally there is," he said. "Myself." And he left Jack to his gratifying sense of pitying superiority. Who said Tracy was incapable of kindness? 

He knew the answer, of course: everyone said it. Everyone save Frank.

As he was walking away, he looked up once more at the house. A curtain whisked shut on the first story, but not before Tracy caught a glimpse of dark hair and a willowy figure.

Frank had said something on the subject of Diana...in fact, he had said many somethings, but one in particular came into Tracy's mind. He had not paid the words much heed at the time; it was with difficulty he dredged them up now. 

_When love comes, you will count yourself as nought; you will realize your own insignificance, and above all, be ready to make any sacrifice for her sake. Yes, even to the point of losing her!_

That, he supposed, was how Jack loved Dick. There was no one Tracy cared for so deeply. He could not imagine forgiving a wrong such as Dick's. 

He was probably fonder of Fortescue than anyone else--indeed, he must be. He knew it by his own actions. But in his heart, he did not _feel_ fond. Frank had almost got himself killed for Tracy's sake and Tracy hated him for it. Only last night, he had sat awake while Frank tossed and turned in fever and imagined smothering him himself to end the waiting. Of course he had not done it; he knew the thought was mad.

Madness was in his blood.

 _Like all Belmanoirs, you care first for yourself and secondly for the man who masters you,_ he had told Lavinia. Now that truth contorted, like a snake, and reshaped itself into a truer form: Belmanoirs did not care for themselves at all. And just like poor Lavvy, Tracy panted after the man who seemed to offer the promise of becoming someone entirely different. Frank could not want to save him as badly as Tracy wanted to be saved. But it was hopeless.

Diana could not make him a new man. Frank could not make him a new man. 

He would always be like this. He would always feel this way. He found the prospect well-nigh unbearable.

###

When the Duke returned to Frank's lodgings, the patient was sitting up and drinking some broth, slowly but without assistance. Tracy felt an odd pang, as if Frank healing were a disappointment.

"Your man sent over a letter from England," Frank said. "From Lavinia, I think."

Tracy looked at the writing and agreed. "Let us see what mischief my dear little sister is up to now." Opening it, he carried it to the window.

_My very dear Tracy,_

_I am writing to Warn you: Diana and Jack are for Paris! Indeed they left last week (entirely on a Whim, Jack resolving all at once that he needs must have Diana's portrait by a Frenchman whose name I have forgot; Dicky says more like Jack wishes to order some New coatts), and I meant to write you then, only little John had the Scarlet Fever and I was beside myself worrying over him. You would have been so out of Patience with me, I was in a Temper all week, quite shrieking at Dicky for trying to Comfort me and even raging at poor John himself because he was Frettful and would not swallow his medicine. I wonder we have a Servant left! Thank God he is Better, and the doctor says that his skin should stop peeling in a few days, for which I am very Grateful as the Sight distresses me no end._

_I hope you will not do anything foolish, Tracy. I have grown fond of Diana and would be very cross with you if you did anything to Embarrass her. I miss you Terribly, and am for ever badgering Dick to take me to visitt you, but he will not. You must come Home soon! Dick asks me to ask you to convey his Regards to Mr. Fortescue._

_With dearest Love,_  
 _Yr. Sister,  
Lavinia_

It was not an extraordinary missive, but his Grace read it once, twice, and then a curious smile twisted his lips.

"Tracy?" Frank asked. "Is Lavinia well?"

"Quite well. Indeed, she is more than usually lucid. She informs me that little John has been ill, and she has been in a roaring temper all week on that account."

Fortescue laughed. "It amazes me how alike the two of you can be."

Tracy looked at Frank, who did not seem to see anything in this out of the common way--who, evidently, had understood all along that Tracy was angry because he was terrified.

Frank was healing; he would certainly live. There was no longer any cause for rage or terror. The skin around Tracy's eyes was tight, and his throat hurt. He reflected that no doubt Fortescue would know what that meant, too.

"What is it, Devil?" Frank winced as he turned his shoulders to look more fully at his friend.

His Grace had wanted Frank from the moment he saw him, and he had taken him--taken as much as he could without risking losing him altogether. Now Frank was suffering the consequences of that desire. Diana--proud, brave Diana--had hid in her own home when Tracy called. He had made her afraid.

Frank had not even the sense to be afraid.

"I have realized my own insignificance at last," Tracy said softly. 

Frank sighed. "What did she say to you?"

"Oh, she was not at home when I called."

"I'm sorry, Tracy."

There was a curious heavy fluttering in his Grace's chest. "I find I grow weary of your pity," he said. "It had a certain novelty for a while, but now..."

Fortescue frowned. "Devil?"

"I take my leave of you, my dear. Please, do not write. I should dislike embarrassing you by returning your correspondence."

Frank began to struggle up from his bed. Tracy called for his valet. "Your master will do something foolish like try to rise," he calmly informed that domestic on his arrival. "Do not allow it. Farewell, Frank." Frank swore furiously and fought back. The valet, lacking the courage to defy his master, allowed Frank to stand, sweating and gasping. 

Tracy pressed his lips together and did not permit himself to interfere. Instead, he turned on one silver heel and took his leave. Behind him, he heard Frank take one uneven step, then another, and shout in a voice that cracked, "Tracy! Damn you, Tracy, come here!"

The Duke went out the door and shut it.

###

After that, it was quite impossible for the Duke to stay in Paris. He could hardly avoid meeting Fortescue, once he was recovered. He resolved to try London again. Surely Frank would have the sense to stay away. If not, Tracy did not for a moment doubt his own ability to dislodge him.

But London bored him. He drank, played cards, and was rude to his acquaintances, quite as he always did, yet it was as though he attended a play. A rather bad play, peopled with unconvincing puppets. 

After a week or two, during a game of dice that Tracy was doing his utmost not to be deathly bored by, Avon said, "I hear you've quarrelled with Fortescue."

Tracy lifted his green eyes to Avon's face. "Did you now? From whom, may I ask?"

"Oh, everyone's talking about it."

"Yes," agreed Falmouth. "I heard from a lady I know in Paris..." He paused, awaiting congratulatory chuckles.

"That is little enough to be proud of," sneered his Grace. "You have persuaded a Frenchwoman to gossip, my congratulations."

There was a general laugh, and Falmouth snapped, "She says Fortescue's devilish upset."

Tracy yawned.

"I heard it too," volunteered Dare. "Lady Cholmondley is in Paris just now, and she wrote to my wife that she saw Fortescue lose five hundred pounds at a card party through staring out the window when he ought to have been playing. And then he asked if anyone had news of you. I told Lady Dare you seemed well enough to me."

"Poor Frank," said Avon, rolling the dice. "Did he think to be your pet forever? For myself, I was amazed it lasted as long as it did."

"So was I," Falmouth said. "You'd never any patience for preaching, Devil."

Tracy looked around the table. These were men who had known him all his life. He had made an improbably large sacrifice, entirely out of character, and all they could say was _isn't that just like Devil!_ Just like Devil to care for nothing and no one. 

The Duke laughed and took the dice. He bet too high and too reckless, and it failed to distract him for a moment. God! he was pining like a lovesick schoolgirl. His lip curled so viciously at the thought that Dare, sitting beside him, drew back.

This disgusting weakness was beneath him. Moreover, he thought bitterly, it was _unlike_ him--ask anyone!

That night he rode home to Andover Court. He drove his horse hard, changing mounts twice so he would not have to slow. At least at Andover, he would be alone.

###

Andover was not nearly as lonely as Tracy would have liked. He had imagined Diana in every room--had pictured her mistress of the place, her lovely, queenly face making the rooms lovely too.

He had not, it occurred to him at length, imagined himself as master. Indeed, his day-dream of Diana's life here had not included himself at all. How could it? Would he be a self-satisfied squire like Richard? Hunt and shoot and oversee the harvest and...raise children? Grow old with his wife? It was laughable.

Besides, he had always hated this house. He had never belonged here. He stood out against the comfortable furnishings of a past generation like a malevolent, gleaming beetle on a wholesome green leaf. 

With or without a wife, however, he must grow old. The Duke could not banish the unpleasant spectre of an old man in black and silver, taking snuff with a trembling bony hand--an ugly, piteous eccentricity. Lavvy would be a fat, happy old woman, and her grandchildren would avoid him, laughing at him behind their hands with their grubby little friends.

Here was self-pity with a vengeance! To dispel it, Tracy rode the seven miles to see Lavinia at Wyncham, but she had gone visiting. Richard came out to greet him, looking haler and younger than he had in years. "Tracy," he said with a bow. His eyes searched Tracy's face. "Are you well?"

Tracy did not think Richard's eyes sharp enough to see much of anything, but still he disliked the scrutiny. "Tolerably so, I thank you. And yourself?"

Richard smiled, suddenly and broadly. The smile heartily offended his Grace. His fingers curled, longing to knock it from his brother-in-law's face. "I am, thank you," said Richard. "Lavinia will be sorry to have missed you."

"I am sorry to have missed her as well. Pray give her my regards, and tell her she is invited to Andover an she likes to come."

"I shall. Tracy..." Richard hesitated.

"Yes?"

"I heard you broke it off with Frank Fortescue."

His Grace inclined his head. "He began to bore me."

Richard frowned. "That isn't all I heard."

Tracy held himself very still, and smiled. He looked, thought Richard, like a panther scenting his prey. Richard had never liked Tracy, and he had not forgiven him for his part in Jack's fall, or for Jack's twice-wounded shoulder. But the man was his wife's brother, whom she loved dearly. And the Duke looked ill. His pallor, which had always given Richard a thrill of fascinated horror, now seemed merely haggard.

Besides, Richard privately considered Fortescue the only effective check on his Grace's behavior, and consequent demands on Richard's own pocketbook. 

"When Lavinia was going to leave me," Richard said slowly, "I meant to let her go. You remember?"

"Vividly."

"I wanted only her happiness. I thought she--I supposed I was making a very great sacrifice. But when I asked her, I found that she had not wanted to go at all, only supposed it to be _my_ wish."

"A very charming story," drawled Tracy, "but I do not find it much _à propos._ "

"My grand sacrifice made me feel very noble," said Richard, half-smiling. "I had not felt noble in a very long time, you understand."

"I believe you," said Tracy sardonically.

Richard looked amused. Once, he would have flushed miserably. Tracy did not like that; he thought his brother-in-law would be a good deal harder to manage, now he was happier. "But in the end, it was not so grand or brave after all," said Richard. "It only made Lavinia wretched. I cannot help thinking that if I had been stronger, if I had had the courage to tell her I was hers to take or leave from the first, the _very_ first, exactly as I was, and that she must choose--perhaps that night at Dare's might have been avoided altogether."

"She'd never have married you," Tracy said in poisonous tones.

Richard regarded him steadily. "I'll never know, I suppose. And neither will she."

"And yet the pair of you find a way to suffer your fates without more than four or five times your share of complaint."

Richard laughed. "It came out well enough, didn't it? Do you know, Tracy...John reminds me of you sometimes."

It was as if Richard had hurled, sharply and heavily, a rock at Tracy's chest. "My condolences."

Richard smiled. "He makes that face you're making right now, that imperious won't-brook-refusal face. He clenches his little fists and _wills_ me to fall in with his wishes. I find myself growing fond of the expression."

"You had better curb his starts while you can," said Tracy lightly.

"Oh, he'll turn out all right," Richard said confidently.

Tracy could find no answer to that. Only as he was going away up the drive, he heard little John's laughter behind him, and, turning back, saw him put up his arms. Richard laughed too and swept the child up, lifting him above his head and swinging him about before setting him back on the ground. His Grace's stomach turned over within him. 

That Richard Carstares would dare to talk as if they were two of a kind! If Tracy were a weak coward like Richard, he would slit his own throat and have done. 

Tracy could not ever remember being afraid of anything. No one had coddled _him,_ as a child! At little John's age he had already begun to face his mother in her rages without fear, without caring that it only inflamed her further--and little wonder that it had. How strange and unnerving it must have been, to see Tracy's hard green eyes glittering in a child's face. 

Belmanoirs had spines of fine steel, all of them, even Lavvy. Richard would have withered away at Andover Court like a neglected rosebush. 

An earlier memory drifted up, slowly, of hiding in his bed because his mother hated him. He could not place it, only recognized the curtains and knew that it had happened in the nursery at Andover Court, and that he had broken something. He searched his memory carefully, and drew forth a china monkey. She was out, but when she came home she would know what he had done.

The recollection made his skin crawl. He tried to think instead of how much he despised Richard, but...had Richard really talked of Lavinia as if it were the same thing as Frank? Did weak, stupid Richard, of all people, see the truth?

Was he making Frank wretched? 

The Duke imagined offering himself to Frank to take or leave, exactly as he was. What, precisely, did he fear? That Frank would leave him? He had lost Frank already, of his own free will. That Frank would laugh?...The long fingers clenched, but after all that was only a torture to steel himself against. A few weeks ago, it would have seemed an unthinkable surrender.

###

His Grace of Andover was admitted into Frank's lodgings immediately upon presenting his card.

"Tracy," Fortescue said. "I own I didn't expect to see you."

The white face was taut. "I did not expect to come. How does your shoulder?"

"Still painful, but the doctors say I'm entirely out of danger."

The Duke nodded. "You know me," he said abruptly. "Likely better than any other living creature."

Frank regarded him steadily. "I think I do."

"You believe I can change. I don't think so."

"Tracy, please--"

"Hear me out!" Tracy said through clenched teeth. "I can, perhaps, change a few of my habits. But my character--that is formed."

Fortescue drew back in surprise. "Devil?"

"You cannot save me." The Duke's green eyes burned in his pale face, so brightly the color looked unnatural. "I beg you not to try. But if you'll have me...I was, perhaps, not formed for happiness. But I...damnation, it's a poor bargain to offer you."

"I shall be the judge of that," said Frank, a strange, sharp note in his dreamy voice. "For God's sake, Tracy, be plain!"

"As little as I can comprehend it, you seem to cherish an affection for me." He bared his teeth, nearly snarling. "'Fore Gad, I can't bear my own snivelling! The plain truth is, that you could have me body and soul if you liked. I shall not promise to be kind, but your happiness would be dearer to me than my own could ever be."

"Tracy--" Frank's lips trembled. "Oh, you poor Devil, I thought--Lord, this _is_ a reprieve! I was sure I'd lost you for good this time, and with no one to blame but myself. I've been going about in a daze. Your character was perhaps not formed for sainthood, but no more was mine, and I swear I wouldn't change a hair of it. I suppose I liked the idea of my own nobility--God, if I'd only known you felt the same! I imagined that if you wanted me, you'd have taken me long ago."

Tracy's chest heaved rapidly, like a frightened animal. He did not speak.

Frank laughed. "Don't look so tragic! We've plenty of years yet. Here, stand still so I don't jar my shoulder when I kiss you."

And for once his Grace did not take what he wanted; he was given it.


End file.
